hold my hand and i'll take you there
by quinnpuck
Summary: Santana knows she shouldn't get into this - she's a prison guard, not a detective or a lawyer - but she also knows she can't let Sam die in this place. And until threats and violence and one Brittany Pierce get add to the equation, things were going fine. Brittany/Santana, with Brittany/Sam, Sam/Santana and Finn/Santana friendship, t for language, mentions of violence


**a/n this story is going to be brittana **_**and**_** bram "focused"! ! ! if you don't like one of the two, i'm sorry, but this story is not for you. it's brittana if anything, but there's definitely some heavy bram! ! !**

**i know there's a lot of backstory and details that maybe aren't necessary, but i like my story to have some content and i like including more characters.**

**this is my first actual brittana story so i'm a little nervous actually but i really hope i do them justice. **

**also, i'm not from the us, nor have i done intense research on the whole prison thing so mistake me for any errors.**

**i'm a little uncertain about uploading this, it's been a long work in progress but i hope you guys like this first chapter, i'm very proud of it :)**

**story title is from somewhere by the west side story cast, and chapter title is by zedd from this one song called clarity.**

x

_chapter one:_ _hold still right before we crash_

5:30, time to get up.

Santana sighs as she slips into a black tanktop, hoping it's clean enough to pass off as just that. She takes a half drunk bottle of coke from her nightstand and takes a swig before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and shimmies into her pants. The twenty-six year old Latina walks over to her bathroom and takes a look at herself, figuring she probably should've taken a shower before collecting her black hair and tying it together in a ponytail.

She purses her lips at her reflection, scrunching up her nose at the bags underneath her eyes - another night of nightmares will do that for you. She turns away from the mirror making her way back to her bedroom (it wasn't that she wasn't a pretty girl, because she was if she tried, and she hadn't been trying for a long time).

She sits back down on her bed, considering going back for sleep before realizing it's already 5:45 and Finn would probably be there within five minutes. She puts on her shoes and fills her bag with a bottle of water and some lunch before taking another swig of the coke. Quickly spraying on some deodorant and throwing it in her bag, just to be sure, she makes her way over to the front door of her apartment. As on que, Finn honks and she takes her leather jacket in her hands and closes the door behind her before slipping into the shotgun seat.

"Hey."

"Hey," he smiles amusingly as he takes a look at her, "Rough night?"

She puts on her seatbelt as she stares straight ahead, "Rough life."

He lets out a small chuckle before starting the car back up. Finn's a broad 6'3 tall guy on the outside, but a small teenage girl on the inside. Santana didn't know how he ended up with the same job as her anyway. He was a softie. But like they say, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, especially with so little jobs around this town. He has like five kids running around at home and a high maintence little dwarf of a wife - so he definitely needs this job.

She doesn't need it per se, but she likes it. She hates the waking up early and the name calling (even though she does her fair share of that) and the fact she has to work with people who've done terrible things but she loves feeling like she has a purpose in this society.

Finn goes off into some probably sweet (and possibly boring) story about one of his kids, knowing Santana isn't even listening but it's kind of their thing. He talks and she goes off in her own world as they drive to work.

She loves the dude, and the kids, but she needs the mental peace before going into the nuthouse.

x

"Open up cell six," she yells, tapping her baton against the bar signaling for the inmate to get up and put his hands where they can see them as a buzzer goes off and Finn steps forward to pinn the inmates arms behind his back.

"Ah, _mamá mía_, they brought in an _estriptista_, ey," the tattooed man tells her with a thick spanish accent lacing his words as he winks at her as Finn leads him past her. She's learned to ignore most of the comments by now. "When are you finally going to take that blouse off?"

Finn jabs him in the back, telling him to watch it. She tightens her jaw as she just opens the connecting door, letting them both pass her.

"Romero, you haven't showered in five days because you refused to. You're either going to take one now voluntary without causing any trouble, or we are going to have to wash you ourselves -"

"I won't mind if she does," he narrows his eyes lustfully on Santana who just cracks her neck before taking off his cuffs roughly.

"I would take one right now if I were you, my nails have been getting quite long and I wouldn't want to accidentally cause your privates to bleed so hard they have to cut them off to stop it," she bites as she pushes him towards the shower while Finn tells him to undress.

"Alright, alright, jesús," Romero answers as he starts undressing, handing the jumpsuit to Finn before starting up the shower.

She leans back against the wall, crossing her arms as Finn stands next to her. They both keep their eyes on the inmate as they talk.

"That was harsh."

"Please, I gots to keep it real," she smirks a little as he nudges her with his shoulder.

Finn laughs a little, running a hand through his sandy brown hair, "Santana Lopez, keeping it real like always."

She freezes as she thinks of the last time someone said that.

"_Santana Lopez, keeping it real like always," the blonde snaps as she narrows her eyes at the sixteen year old Santana. "Except, you're not that real are you? Why don't you tell us where you've been for the past two years?"_

"_Kitty," the blonde's friend tries to stop her, noticing Santana's eyes darkening but she doesn't listen._

_The perky cheerleader smirks amused before pursing her lips, "The place you're probably going to end up soon enough until you turn eighteen and trade it in for a real prison just like your dadd-" _

_Slap. _

_She slaps her, hard and Kitty slaps her back and she punches her a little too hard and before she knows it she's earned a bloody lip, a suspension and another trip to juvie. The worst part was the bitch had been right after all._

"San," Finn nudges her as he throws the orange jumpsuit towards Romero, "Time to put him back and then we can finally grab lunch."

She nods as she snaps out of her trance, tightening her ponytail before going over to assist Finn.

She was glad it was the end of the week. Today was not her day.

x

"We have a new one coming in today," Finn tells her as he takes a bite out of his sandwich and Santana sits back as she sips on her water. She raises her eyebrows,"What?"

"Yeah, Puckerman told me during patrol time down in the library - murder or something," he shrugs as he opens up his carton of milk.

Santana huffs, opening up a small bag of doritos, "Yeah, well, I wouldn't believe anything that comes out of Puckerman's mouth. He might be sleeping with the Warden's daughter but that doesn't make him less of a bullshitter. There's nothing on the schedule."

Finn shrugs again, not saying anything for a while as he opens his custom made fruit mix from his wife and Santana rolls her eyes getting up to wash her hands to get rid of the dorito stank. She resists the urge to roll her eyes again as she recognizes the voice of one Noah Puckerman behind her.

"Warden asked me to get some assistance, it's a big deal this goes right 'cause it's a big fucking case for this shithole or some shit."

"What are you talking about, man?" Finn furrows his brows and he's so slow sometimes - it'd be annoying if they weren't friends. He gets distracted when he's eating.

"That serial killer, the one I told you about? He's supposed to come in in an hour or so, the dude was scheduled to go to Akron but for some reason they're bringing him here. If you ask me -"

"No one's asking you," Santana cuts him off as she prays for Finn to hurry the fuck up so they can get to their patrol on the third floor and get away from the son of a bitch.

"Ah, Lopez is here, thought I smelled a mixture of alcohol and sex," Puck smirks as he leans back on his chair, putting his hands behind his head as he admires her body. Who even is he? What kind of insult was that? It wasn't even _good_.

She acknowledges his presence for the sake of not jumping over the table and attacking him, "_Puckerman_."

"When is this going to go down?" She asks him, tightening her ponytail again, a habit whenever she's stressed or nervous.

Puck widens his god awful grin as he gets up and wipes his blue blouse, "No worries, little delinquent, you can help us. We need someone to clean his cell for him before he gets here."

She shakes her head to herself as she drags Finn away from the table before she kills someone. She regrets the fact she didn't quit this job the minute she met Puckerman because he has no manners nor sense of right and wrong. He looked up her fucking file for God's sake - which is the worst because he knows all about her tiniest flaws and biggest mistakes and he sure as hell likes to use them against her.

She had been a teenager. Sure, she went to juvie a couple of times, was lucky to even get out of that world but she got her life together. Graduated high school, went to college became a damn prison officer. Part of her did it to avenge her parents' death and another part did it to feel safe in this miserable, stinking world.

When she was six, she was in a car accident with her parents. Her dad never really had been any good, being in and out of jail for most of her life, but she still loved him. He was her dad. So to say that car accident changed her life, yes. No little girl deserves to be an orphan at six years old - which explains the nightly terrors she still has to go through.

A few years back she found out the car accident wasn't just that. An accident. It was a set-up and she had to pay for it the rest of her life. She remembers waking up in the hospital, hours after, some intern doctor telling her '_well, sorry, your parents are dead, feel better_'. She never did, feel better, that is.

She went from foster family to foster family before telling herself it was just better to not care for anything at all. So she didn't (and in the moments she caught herself doing just that, she usually pushed it away). Finn had been one of the first people ever to find out about her past and he accepted she wasn't a very open person. Not that she would ever admit it to his face, but he was her best and only friend.

Working here made her feel like she was contributing to justice - something her parents never got. So she's glad she didn't quit this job.

It makes her feel - not completely worthless.

x

Sure enough, she ends up checking the cell and cleaning it out anyway. It's on the ground floor, which is infamous for housing some of the worst criminals Ohio has ever known, also known as dead row. She sighs as she leans against the wall next to cell thirteen, waiting for them to bring in the prisoner. She usually doesn't get included in bringing in the heavy criminals and even though she gets told it's not because of the fact she's a woman but she's the least experienced, she knows it's because she's a woman.

It's funny really, she went through the same exams and training they all did and passed them with ease, yet she's here cleaning out a damn cell. All because she has a set of boobs and lacks a penis. Great.

She checks her clock, wondering what's taking so long. They went to get him fifteen minutes ago, it didn't take fifteen minutes to escort a damn man to a cell on the ground floor. Amateurs.

Finally, she sees Puckerman's mohawk appear and she straightens up. Part of her wants to see what this holy almighty murderer looks like.. and he doesn't look like one at all.

His face is sad and almost desperate, his green eyes look like he's lost something (perhaps his life, she thinks), his blonde locks falling into his face as he faces downwards while they drag him along.

When they reach the cell he looks up at her and his eyes pierce right through her.

"Lopez," Puckerman says sternly and she stammers a few words while quickly stepping away from the entrance. There was something about the way he looked at her, the feelings splattering across his eyes like little stars, feelings she had once felt herself.

"_Santana Lopez, inmate number 902349."_

_She straightens her back, reaching up to touch her freshly cut hair as she looks at the officer. There's an impatient scowl on her face and there's something about the way she talks that almost frustrates Santana. She sounds bored and careless and superior._

_She tries to open her mouth, to speak, to justify her actions. She didn't mean to set a house on fire with a little kid still in it, more than that, she didn't mean to hurt anyone. (She just wanted to forget about everything, the hurt that throbbed inside her chest with every breath she took.) _

_She managed to get him out, but this was her fourth strike. When had someone who craved justice become so unjustful? Bringing harm to others? That wasn't her. Sure, she hated half of Lima's population, if not more, but she couldn't actually hurt anyone._

_It doesn't seem like the officer would care for anything that she says anyway, so she sits down on the bed, watches her close the cell before a buzzer goes off and she's left to stare at the closed door. She's all alone. And lonely, that she is, too._

Needless to say she gets the hell away from there as fast as she could.

x

She's patrolling during dinner with Chang and Rutherford when a fight breaks out. (Like she said, it's not her day. At all.)

She has to get in the middle of it, using her baton to break apart the two people in the midst of it all. Chang takes the other guy, Karofsky if she remembers correctly, pinning his arms behind his back while Rutherford tries to calm the other inmates down, cutting dinner short for everyone.

She crouches down with a sigh. It's the new guy.

"A fight on your first day, huh?"

"_Life will knock us down, but we can choose whether or not to stand back up_," he replies in a thick chinese accent and Santana gives him a weird look as she helps him up.

"Karate kid," he smiles goofily as she takes a look at his bruised eye. His waist is bleeding and his lip is starting to swell. Maybe this dude was batshit crazy or something. He was a serial killer after all, she reminds herself.

She smiles (a little) despite herself as she leads him towards an first aid room.

"Take off your shirt," she commands as she gets out the right equipment. She tells the other's via portable radio that she's in the first aid room with the newest guy as Finn tells her he'll be there as soon as possible. There's officers around the corner but it's standard procedure to never be alone in a room with an inmate.

Somehow he gives her the feeling he's not that dangerous but she still can't take the risk. She doesn'tt feel like waiting for Finn to get his lazy ass over here so she continues. Her shift was almostt over damnit.

"Take off your shirt," she repeats sternly and he looks at her weirdly.

"No offence but do you even know how to do this?"

"Cutbacks. The nurse got fired. I have a first aid diploma. Now take off your shirt," she retorts each sentence slowly, putting on plastic gloves as she takes out some cotton swabs to clean the cut under his eye.

He does as she says before she handcuffs him in front of his body. She starts cleaning the blood on his face, nursing his wounds, remaining to look slightly intimidating.

"Have you worked here long?" He asks her and she ignores his questions, "Raise your arms above your head. If you try to pull a stunt I will castrate you," she informs him dryly as she takes a look at the cut on his waist. It's no deep but it's obviously not from a normal fistfight. Karofsky used something else.

"Do you like working here?" He tries again and she doesn't know why he wants to small talk with her. He's seeking confrontation of some sort, she thinks.

She sighs, looking up at him, wondering what the fuck's taking Finn so long, and sees that look again.

"My name's Sam, Sam Evans, by the way, and I don't like green eggs and ham," he smiles on of those adorable innocent smiles and she thinks she losing her mind.

"What is you-" He tries to ask but she cuts him off.

"Why are you in here, exactly?" She asks him, licking her dry lips as she puts a gauze against the wound, taping the edges to his waist.

"I commited a few murders."

"You don't sound convinced."

"Because I'm not."

Her head snaps up to look at him and he doesn't look like he's kidding.

"You want to know how many people here claim they're innocent? Not even including the ones on death row," she huffs to herself, she's not falling for this. She adds, "Every single one of them."

"I didn't say I was innocent," he seems to panic a little, which heightens her senses. The smell of blood is starting to make her feel sick.

She tilts her head slightly, crossing her arms as she narrows her gaze on him. "You're implying it."

"No, I wasn't," he says a little too quickly, his green eyes darkening as if they were trying to say _don't believe me, please, don't believe me_.

She shakes her head to herself. For all she knew this guy was a complete lunatic. She orders him to put his shirt back on after taking off his handcuffs. He puts his white wife-beater back on before slipping back in his jumpsuit while she takes off her own gloves before handcuffing him again and leading him to the door.

She pauses in front of the door. She doesn't feel sorry for people, especially not criminals, but there's something about him, some small part of innocence that's making her question everything.

"Look.." She wants to tell him she understands how scary this must be but that he shouldn't make up things like this,

"I was framed," he hangs his head low as he whispers the exact few words she wish he wouldn't have.

Finn suddenly bursts through the door, out of breath, "Sorry, Quinn didn't want to let me through before I finished the interim employees reports. She's such a pain in the ass." He rolls his eyes as he takes Sam by the arm and leads him back to the cell.

"I'll lock him up," she determinedly informs Finn as he nods, "I'll be in the lockerroom. Hurry up will you?"

She nods before turning back to Sam, she looks away from him and closes the door.

"Were you really framed?" She asks, tightening her grip on her baton. Something about the framed part made her throat close up and her chest tighten.

He hesitates, and she realizes he's deciding if she can trust him, like he knows something no one else is supposed to know. "I can't talk about it here," he whispers lowly, his eyes shifting from left to right.

"Hurry up, Lopez," she recognizes Abrams' voice through the speakers as she turns back to Sam once more.

"I.." she starts, shaking her head to herself. What is she doing?

The buzzer rings, signaling she has about thirty seconds to get to the door before she'll be locked in. She looks over at him again, desperately, trying to see some kind of sign he's lying but she doesn't find one. His knuckles turn white, his hands wrapped around the bars as he whispers one last crucial piece of information, "My girlfriend, Brittany, she knows the truth."

x

She sighs as she leans her head back against Finn's car seat.

"That was quite the day," Finn states as starts up the car. He takes the long way towards his house, knowing she'll appreciate the time to calm down and process her day. Hudson-Lopez Friday dinners were a tradition since a few years and originally they were supposed to be at Finn's house every other week and at her's the even weeks but with his kids' it was just easier to go to his. (Beside, she didn't like to clean and her apartment was kind of a mess, always.)

"You could say that," she breathes tiredly, hesitatingly biting down on her lip before adding, "That Sam guy today - he mentioned he wasn't guilty of what he's been accused of."

"And you believe him?" Finn asks skeptically, fully well knowing ninety percent of their inmates claim they're innocent and the others are so far gone, as in batshit crazy, that they barely speak and if they do they just brabble shit no one understands.

"I don't know, I.." She pauses, trying to grasp the right words but she doesn't know what exactly she's trying to accomplish here.

"It's not our job to judge, San. It's our job to protect the wellbeing of the prisoners for as long as they're in there."

"You're right," she sighs defeatedly and she doesn't know why she can't get that look out of her head.

Those are the last words said during their car ride and she's happy to sit in front of the tv after a nice warm meal of lasagna to just relax for a few minutes.

Rachel places a glass of cold ice tea in front of her, sitting down on the couch next to her as she rubs her belly. Some show about a judge or something is on and Santana doesn't care enough to change the channel. Usually she just sits her while Rachel knits and Finn takes the kids upstairs with re-runs of the Kardashian's playing in the background.

She leans forward to grab the glass of ice tea and takes a sip of it. She comments, "Wow, they have one witness and that's enough proof to lock him up?"

Rachel shrugs a little as she looks at Santana, "A crime was committed, someone has to pay for it."

"You really think it's that easy?" The black haired beauty asks in return and Rachel purses her lips, a pensive look on her face.

"Everyone is guilty of something," she states before changing the channel to some talent show and starts singing along with all the songs. Just like that. Another man gone to jail for a crime he possibly didn't even commit.

She decides she has to help Sam, since no one else will and someone _did_ commit a crime, and someone _does_ have to pay for it but she swears she _will_ find the guilty person. She will not stand idly by while another person gets framed. She _needs_ to help him. She needs to set things right.

She's going to start by finding this Brittany girl.

x

**tbc.**

**a review would be so, so lovely :)**


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